


A Failure of Gravity

by ameliacareful



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Damaged Dean, Damaged Sam, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Mid-Season 11 Hiatus fic, post second Hell visit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 20:24:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5679571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliacareful/pseuds/ameliacareful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Sam was in the Cage with Lucifer for a couple of weeks before Dean and Cas could get in.</p><p>On a hunt after Sam's second time with Lucifer, he's trying to maintain.  Dean is still the guy who thinks of killing things and saving people as 'Sam's new rule' and Sam recognizes that as signs of Dean not being okay.  </p><p>When push comes to shove, the brothers do their best to catch each other when they fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Failure of Gravity

 

Prompt from Supernaturally-Horrible on Tumblr: Sam wanting to give up after being in hell. Like maybe being depressed or having post traumatic stress disorder or something and Dean helping him through it. Like not wincest but like brotherly love.

 

_“It ends when you can't take it anymore.” -- Lucifer_

 

            I’m fine, Sam thinks. _I’m fine i’m fine i’m fine._ He follows Dean into Cecillia’s, the Mexican restaurant recommended for breakfast. It’s a place in a strip mall. It's clean, bare of decorations and smells of cumin and chili powder.  They’re here tracking down a lead on some sort of angel activity because apparently while he was trapped with Lucifer, Amara was disintegrating angels.

            This is important. This is what they do. _I’m fine i’m fine i’m fine._ He slides into a chair across from Dean and tries to act like he didn’t spend the last decade or so not eating. Or sleeping. Even when you are in Hell in your body, you don’t eat or sleep; you just entertain an archangel. Well, Dean says Crowley says at least a decade, Sam has no idea how long it was. He has no idea how long it was the first time. There aren’t any clocks or calendars, no days and nights, just one long uninterrupted experience with an archangel and an inability to die. A long endless ‘now’. This was a lot shorter than the first visit. Apparently.

            Breakfast. He is a normal human being and normal human beings eat breakfast.

            “Looks good, Sammy,” Dean says. “They’ve got American stuff, too. Pancakes sound good?”

            “Yeah,” Sam says. Pancakes. How do pancakes sound? He’s eaten pancakes before. He looks at the menu—breakfast burritos with bacon and eggs, chorizo and eggs, cheese and eggs, salsa verde, American breakfast with choice of sausage or bacon. A lot of choices. He’s not used to choices. Since he’s been back, Dean’s been cooking breakfast in the morning. This is their first hunt. It took them two days to get here and the first morning Dean had looked at the menu and rolled his eyes and said, ‘Oh look, the Herbivore Special, veggie omelet. You can even get your side of fruit.’ So Sam had ordered that. It was something he remembered eating before.

            They didn’t usually eat Mexican breakfasts and here there were no vegetable omelets. What would Dean be expecting him to eat? He’s looking at the menu in his hands and he reads it again. He doesn’t feel quite connected to anything. He feels like everything is far away, like he’s looking at everything through the wrong end of a set of binoculars. It’s not that he can’t focus. It’s been happening a lot since he got back. Like his skull is a bone cave he’s peering out of and everything outside is dicey.

            Dean is looking at him. “Studying for the test?”

            “What?” Sam asks.

            “You’re pretty intense with that menu, there, princess.”

            “Pancakes,” Sam says.

            Dean looks surprised. “Okay, then.” He frowns a little. “Get some bacon, dude. Protein, so you don’t crash.”

            Sam swallows. “Sure.”

            “You all right?” Dean asks.

            “Yeah,” Sam says. “So. We’ve got a Federal prison, high unemployment, and angels? Why here?”

            A tiny middle-aged Latina brings them coffee and takes their orders. Chorizo breakfast burrito for Dean and…Sam goes blank. “Pancakes and a side of bacon,” Dean says. Sam manages a smile.

            “You take care of him?” the waitress asks, flirting with Dean. She’s got blue eye shadow and dangly earrings.

            “Couldn’t find his ass with both hands without my help,” Dean says.

            Sam rolls his eyes and the waitress cackles.

            Dean gives Sam a look as she walks away.

#

            Mendota, California is a dry, dirty little town. They are looking for an address—Sam found it because it’s owned by a company with the unlikely name of Bidegurutzea LTD. Sam’s Spanish is really not great, he’s a dead languages kind of guy, but it struck him strange and not really Spanish. It turns out to mean ‘crossroads’. In Basque.

            “Isn’t that, like, pottery or something?” Dean asks.

            “It’s a language spoken in Spain,” Sam says.

            “So Spanish?” Dean is whipping the Impala through the streets of Mendota and he looks remarkably pleased.

            “Actually not Spanish. It’s a language isolate,” Sam says. Dean has finally stopped looking at him like he’s a grenade with the pin pulled. Sam isn’t sure if it’s because he’s rattling off facts or because Dean not only demolished his breakfast burrito but ate a third of Sam’s pancakes. He says they were good pancakes and Sam is willing to take his word on it.

            “You’re going to explain, aren’t you.”

            “Basque,” Sam says, because if he acts like Dean is annoying it will make Dean happy and making Dean happy makes Sam feel less…weird and more…connected to things, “is a pre-Indo European language. It may be from the same linguistic family as Chechen. There are less than a million people who speak it.”

            “How do you know this shit?” Dean asks.

            “I look it up on Wikipedia,” Sam says. “‘Crossroads’ as a company name?”

            “Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll check for sulfur. But we’re looking for angels.”

            Sam can feel himself making all the usual motions, the usual faces. “Maybe it’s a coincidence?” It just doesn’t feel connected to what he’s feeling. He’s feeling like he’s held together by dental floss.

            “Coincidence,” Dean says, and laughs. “Right. Won’t be the first time we’ve seen demons and angels working together.”

            Sam feels as if he could lose his shit at any second except he has no idea what it means to do that unless he’s hallucinating and thinks that Dean is Lucifer and pulls a gun on him and apparently that’s not what’s happening right now. _I’m fine i’m fine i’m fine._ What if he fucks up? He could get Dean killed.

            They find the place on Tule St., across from a restaurant and pupusaria. It’s a longish, low building painted dirty pink. Like dirty Pepto Bismol pink. They park the Impala in the empty lot beside the place. There are two doors and some windows. There’s a broken air conditioner unit sticking out of one wall. The windows are empty and one has half a curtain rod and a white cotton curtain with a ruffle hanging in one side. “Come on,” Dean says quietly. “I’ve seen meth labs that looked better than this.”

            Sam looks at him. “Meth labs? How many meth labs have you seen?”

            Dean rolls his eyes.

            “Maybe it’s better on the inside,” Sam says.

            “Bet you money that Crowley hasn’t been here.”

            Sam’s not going to argue with that. Crowley likes comfort.

            One of the two doors opens and a white guy in a dark suit looks out. “Oh great,” he says. “Winchesters.” The California sunlight is brutally hard on the guy who looks like he was plucked out of an expensive office and dropped right here. Sam can’t tell if he’s a demon or an angel.

            “Christo,” Dean says.

            The guy does that funny shake/turn thing with his right hand and an angel blade drops into it. “Wrong team,” the angel says.

            They’re both carrying angel blades as well.

            The angel walks out into the yard. He’s starting to recede at the temples and the steady breeze makes a mockery of his hair. They guy who comes out of the door behind him is black and his business suit is stylish and impeccable which is why Sam says, “Christo,” again. That guy’s eyes go black. Demons always have better style sense than angels.

            “Strange days,” Dean observes. “Couldn’t you guys have found a Holiday Inn Express or something?”

            The demon says, “We’re not screwing Amara so we didn’t need a bed.”

            Dean sort of flinches a look towards Sam before anger slams him forward. Sam grabs Dean’s arm. The anger doesn’t surprise him but the weird embarrassed? guilty? flinch did. When he hasn’t been just trying to act like a person, Sam has had hints of something going on with Dean, something that Dean’s not sharing.

            But this isn’t the time.

            A white Ford pick-up comes down the road and slows as a couple more suits come out. The driver of the truck is Latino and he stares as he cruises past them—brothers, suits, Impala. Sam doesn’t recognize any of the suits which doesn’t mean anything about the demons but thanks to Cas he’s met his share of angels. “Upper management know you guys are here?” Sam asks.

            A demon hikes an eyebrow. “Glad to see you’re topside,” she says. Her pencil skirt and three inch heels look even more absurd than the suits in all this dust.

            “I’m sure you’re just tickled,” Dean snarls.

            “Lucifer wants to use demons as floor polish,” she says. “Anything that pisses him off makes me happy.”

            Sam still has his fingers in Dean’s arm and he feels Dean go rigid and then, consciously, no doubt, relax. Sam knows Dean’s tells. Dean is barely in control.

            “What’s this all about?” Sam asks.

            The first angel says, “Our Father’s a deadbeat dad, heaven is a disorganized disaster.”

            The impeccable demon shoots a cuff and says, “Crowley used most of the court of Hell as appetizers for Amara before losing control of her completely.”

            “Castiel has been preaching free will,” the first angel says. “We believe that means not sitting around waiting to be slaughtered by the Darkness.”

            “This is a coup?” Dean says.

            “We’re drafting a constitution,” the demon in the pencil skirt says.

            “A revolution,” Sam says.

            “I am five and a half million years old,” the angel says and his pale eyes, much lighter and less vibrant than Castiel’s, are very, very ancient. “I saw the neutron star at the center of the Crab Nebula collapse and I’ve heard the music of electrons in orbit in the elements. You humans are marvelous, the pulleys of your tendons and the architecture of your bones, the astonishing way your neurons regulate the electrical flow of thought but so were the animals of the Cretaceous and the animals of the next age will be extraordinary in ways I can’t imagine. Do you know how many of my brothers and sisters are dead? Someone has to care.”

            “Fuck my life,” Dean says so quietly that no one can hear him but Sam. At the same time the impeccable demon says something to the first angel. Sam barely has time to bring his angel blade up and there the five suited angels and demons are attacking.

            He starts chanting the Rituale Romanum without thinking and reverses his blade to slam it and his shoulder into one of the demons. He can hear and feel a couple of ribs crack. He hears Dean catch the exorcism and continue even as he sees the flash of brilliant light signifying an angel death from the corner of his eye.

            No, Dean, save the innocent vessel, he thinks, and then feels himself thrown back towards the Impala. He lands on his back, dirt underneath him. He fights without thinking, as if his body isn’t his, raising the angel blade expecting someone to come after him. The demon in the pencil skirt is above him, bring a knife down towards him and instead of stabbing up—his first instinct—he rolls (don’t kill, don’t kill unless you have to) and manages to roll to his knees and feet, lungs heaving, and swings the blade in a wide arc just to drive her back and away.

            He starts chanting again, catching Dean’s voice just as Dean stops, concentrating on the angel and demon facing him.

            The demons realize that they’re about to get sent back to hell and throw their heads back, smoking out, leaving the first angel to face Sam and Dean. Sam circles around so the angel is caught between them.

            “Even if you tell Amara and she kills us, there are more of us,” the angel says to Dean.

            “Why would he tell Amara,” Sam says.

            “Ask him!” the angel says over his shoulder to Sam.

            “DEAN!” Sam says at the same time because Dean has lunged to stab the angel.

            Light flashes from the angel’s eyes and mouth, as the angel dies hung on the angel blade Dean has jammed into it’s chest. Dean’s face is cold.

            Sam doesn’t know what to do for a moment, just stares, and Dean stares back at him, his face—what? Dean has been wearing that face for awhile now. Sam has been telling himself it was all the Mark but Dean is empty of everything except _hunt_.

            Dean pulls his blade out of the angel’s vessel’s body and lets it fall.

            Five and a half million years, Sam thinks.

            In the distance he hears sirens. He should check the vessels of the demons, see if they’re alive.

            _I’m fine i’m fine i’m fine._

            “Sammy,” Dean says, “Get in the car.” He isn’t quite sure he can feel the ground when he walks but he gets in the car. It’s like his feet are touching the ground but he doesn’t have any substance. Like a failure of gravity.

#

            Everything is out of kilter and Sam feels as if Dean is drowning. Or maybe Sam is drowning and he’s grabbed onto Dean and is pulling Dean under. It wasn’t until they were looking for a motel that he realized Dean was hurt and now they’re in another motel room and he’s patching his brother up. It’s not bad, not by Winchester standards. Dean sits in the bathroom with his forearm on the edge of the sink and Sam lays out the suture on a towel.

            He needs Dean and if Dean is drowning. _Get it together, Winchester_.

            Sam can feel that his hands are starting to shake so he digs the bottle out of Dean’s duffle and pours them each a couple of fingers of cheap whiskey. He throws his back. Drinking at lunch means that he’ll stop feeling the shakiness but it also means that he’ll lose his focus. Drinking makes him want to doze because he’s tired all the time and when he dozes he has nightmares so he tries to wait until after dinner to have a drink.

            He gives the other whiskey to Dean.

            “Bring the bottle,” Dean says.

            Well, that’s Dean’s afternoon. On the other hand, it gives him a few more moments to calm himself and he can feel the clenched feeling leaving him.

            He irrigates the wound. _The solution to pollution is dilution_. Forearms are easy. Just stick Dean’s arm under the tap while Dean stares off into the middle distance and sips his drink. The room smells pleasantly of liquor. The warm water runs.

            This is the best it gets.

            Sam stitches Dean’s arm.

            Dean smiles a little. “You make the best stitches, Sammy.” He leans forward a little and Sam lets him lean forehead to forehead, put his hand on Dean’s neck. Sam knows Dean is fucked up. Not from the whiskey—he’s barely had any—but Dean was fucked up a decade ago (just days ago for Dean) when Sam went to talk to Lucifer. Dean is better without the Mark but he’s still hollow, still stitched into a Dean shape by anger.

            “Just let go awhile,” Sam whispers.

            “Can’t,” Dean says back just as quietly. “What if I can’t pull it back together?”

            “I’ve got big hands,” Sam says, “I can hold you together for a little while.”

            Dean sighs and closes his eyes. “Supposed to take care of you.”

            “In awhile, right now just stop for a moment,” Sam says. They sit like that for a bit, Sam on the edge of the tub, both of them forehead to forehead. Sam thinks about drowning, how people grab onto to their rescuers and pull them under with them. Then he kind of stands Dean up and plops him on the bed. He takes his brother’s boots off. Dean lets him. Sam orders pizza with pepperoni, sausage, salami, and Canadian bacon and gets the beer out of the Impala. He’s pretty sure about the pizza. He gets ice and puts the beer in the old cooler.

            It’s like being in a play, doing all these things. Dean watches him from the bed. The television is on something, Engineering Disasters. The Tacoma Bridge is collapsing in black and white one more time. He pours Dean another whiskey and gets him a beer, even though it isn’t chilled.

            He looks around for the next thing to do. There isn’t anything. Not until the pizza comes.

            “Sam,” Dean says. “You—you’re…”

            “It’s okay,” Sam says. He doesn’t know what Dean is going to say but this thing he’s doing, the stitching, the pizza, the beer; it’s a spell. He doesn’t want Dean to fuck it up.

            “Why are you…”

            “I need you,” Sam says. “You need to be okay. You’re not okay so I’ve got to take care of you because I need you. Don’t.”

            Dean starts to get up.

            “Don’t!” Sam says, hard. “I got this,” he says, gentler. He puts his hand on Dean’s forehead like he’s taking Dean’s temperature. “Don’t fight,” he says.

            Dean starts to flinch away because Dean always fights. Then he shrugs and gives in. Closes his eyes.

            Sam draws anti-angel sigils and tapes them to all the walls and the door. He spreads salt at the doors and windows. The pizza delivery guy turns out not to be a demon but you never know. He thinks about putting a devil’s trap on the floor in the bathroom but decides against it. He sits next to Dean and pretends to eat pizza.

            _Five and a half million years.   I’m fine i’m fine i’m fine._

#

            In the morning, Dean is hung over. Sam still feels weightless. He packs their duffels and gets coffee and a chorizo, egg, and cheese burrito for Dean, pancakes and bacon for himself. He puts the empty cooler in the Impala, packs everything up, throws a couple of dollars on the pillow for the maid and thinks about all the motel rooms they’ve left in bloody, horrible shape. He watches _Today_ while Dean showers.

            There are several constants to their life and one of them is morning shows like _Today_ and _Good Morning America_. Matt Lauer is like their next door neighbor or something.

            He offers to drive. Dean says he’s fine.

            Sam doesn’t want to go back to the Bunker but there is no where else to go.

#

            Dean wants to drive. They stop well after midnight in a place in Colorado called Georgetown. Sam doesn’t know if Dean is driving so far to make some point about not needing to be taken care of. If he is, Sam doesn’t know which one of them Dean is making the point to. He figures Dean doesn’t either. It doesn’t matter. They sleep in the Impala.

            “We’ll be home tomorrow,” Dean says.

            There are several things Sam could say. We are home. The Bunker doesn’t feel like home. He’s really not good at the whole concept of home. He says, “Good night.”

#

            Sam drives part of the next day. Dean hates cities so Sam takes them through Denver and they’re into the plains. He takes them off the freeway and onto the highways of Colorado and Kansas. They’ve always avoided the interstates when they can. Too many years as wanted men. A few years after the Leviathan cut their bloody swath across the western United States, Sam walked into a gas station and the teen-aged clerk said, “Hey, anybody ever tell you that you look like that serial killer?”

            Sam had given the friendliest smile he could and shaken his head. “What serial killer?” he’d asked and been grateful Dean was in the bathroom.

            (That was only months ago. It just felt like a long time because Sam had been gone a long time.)

            Before long Dean is driving again and Sam stares out the window wishing the ride was done but not wanting to be at the Bunker. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t want to be at the Bunker he just knows that he doesn’t. Everything in him goes tight at the thought of the Bunker.

            Then they are pulling up and Dean says, “Home again, home again, Sammy,” as the door into the big garage opens.

            Sam pushes open the passenger door and gets out. He just wants to. Impulse. Once he’s out he doesn’t know what to do so he just closes the door and stands there.

            The Impala idles for a long drawn out moment. It’s mid-afternoon and cold. The day is clear. The sun is a pale Kansas winter sun.

            Dean’s door opens and Dean looks over the roof of the car. “What are you doing?”

            “I don’t know,” Sam says honestly.

            Dean waits for him to explain and there’s nothing to explain so he just stands there. He doesn’t want to go for a walk because there’s no where to walk to. He doesn’t want to go back to a motel. But mostly he doesn’t want to go into the Bunker. The Bunker feels wrong. The thought of going into the Bunker makes him feel sick.

            “Get in the car, Sam. I’m tired.”

            He tries. He really does. He puts his hand on the door handle. Cold chrome. Then he straightens back up and clenches his fists.

            “What the hell is wrong with you?” Dean asks.

            Well, that’s a good question. Sam figures that the answer was a pretty long one. “Nothing,” he says.

            “Then get in the car,” Dean says.

Sam isn’t looking at Dean because he’s afraid to look at Dean but he can feel Dean’s anger building.

“Look,” Dean says, “we’ll go in, you can change and go for a long ass run. Or get a shower or something.”

            It makes sense. Going for a run is a good idea but he doesn’t want to go for a run. He doesn’t want to do anything. Everything seems like too much. He has that feeling that his body isn’t his. _Depersonalization_ , his internal catalogue of PTSD symptoms supplies. He isn’t breathing right, either. His fingers are tingling. He’s been breathing too hard, hyperventilating, maybe for hours. Well, his body has but really it doesn’t feel as if it has anything to do with him except that he feels kind of lightheaded. Running really would help because running makes him breathe right but he’s wearing boots and he would have to go into the Bunker and walk through the hallways to his room to get his running shoes.

            The engine dies on the Impala. Dean has shut it off.

            “What’s going on, bro?” Dean says. “Talk to me.”

            “I can’t feel myself,” Sam says. “I mean, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s… There’s no gravity. I’m just, it’s stupid.” He waves a hand in the air, an it’s no big deal gesture.

            “Are you hurt?” Dean asks.

            Sam shakes his head. “No more than usual,” he says. “No more than we both are. You know, mileage. We’re not okay anymore, are we.”

            Silence. Dean doesn’t talk about shit. It’s okay, Sam was embarrassed the moment it came out of his mouth. There are things he doesn’t allow himself to think. Words he would never say.

            “Why don’t we go on in,” Dean says gently. “I’ve got some of that bean veggie chili junk in the freezer. I’ll heat it up for you, Samantha. You’ve been eating junk like pancakes and burgers, you need to sit back and watch some Netflix and maybe tomorrow we’ll get some green stuff for your smoothies.”

            Sam nods. The grass looks dead. Everything looks dead. Of course it does, it’s winter.

            Dean comes around the car and reaches for his arm and something in Sam just can’t. He says, without meaning to, _“I’d rather die than go in there!”_ He reaches behind himself for his 9mm because he means it but of course he wasn’t carrying while sitting in the car. His Taurus 9mm is in the glove box. He is a little surprised at himself.

            Dean’s got his hands up and out. “Are you seeing him?” he asks.

            Sam doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “Who?”

            “Lucifer,” Dean says.

            “Oh,” Sam says, “Oh, God, no.”

            “Okay,” Dean says. “Talk to me, little brother.”

            “I don’t know what to say,” Sam says. “I just, there’s no place to go.”

            “You’ve run into a nest of vampires,” Dean says.

            He has. But at the moment he would really rather die, rather shoot himself than go into the Bunker. His body just refuses. Dying doesn’t sound all that bad. Well, not that he particularly wants to die. He’s seen Heaven and God knows he’s seen Hell and neither of those options thrill him. He just wants to escape right here, right now. He just wants this all too stop.

            “How about,” Dean says, “we open up the back door of the car?”

            Sam doesn’t know why they would do that but okay. He opens up the back door of the car. Dean comes up to him slowly, “I’m not going to take you inside,” he says. “Come on, just sit down.” He gently pushes Sam down on the backseat, Sam’s feet still on the ground outside. “What’s going on, Sammy?”

            “I don’t know. I can’t explain it,” Sam says. He looks anywhere but at Dean. He feels so ashamed. Drowning. Pulling Dean down with him. “It just, I can’t do it anymore.”

            “Do what?” Dean squats in front of him and puts his hands on Sam’s knees.

            “Anything,” Sam says, exhaling. “I’ve been making myself and I can’t do it.”

            Dean still doesn’t understand. “Making yourself do what?”

            Sam gives up and admits it. “Everything,” he says. When Dean doesn’t say anything. “Get up. Shower. Brush my teeth. Eat. Walk around. It’s all getting harder and harder and I just can’t make myself do anything any more.”

            Dean’s hands tighten on Sam’s knees. He’s going to take care of it. And do what, Sam thinks, brush my teeth?

            “Don’t say it. I can’t make it your job,” Sam says.

            “It is my job,” Dean says. “It’s always been my job.”

            Sam laughs. “You’re held together by rage and alcoholism.”

            “And you’re held together by guilt,” Dean says. “Tell you what, lets take turns. You took care of me. Let me take care of you right now. People who have just come back from Hell get special privileges.”

            “That was my fault,” Sam says, “I was stupid.” He can’t help remembering that _he thought the visions came from God_ and then he can’t get his breath.

            “Shhhh,” Dean says. “Breathe with me. Come on. In. Out. In. Out.” Dean puts his hand in the center of Sam’s chest and Sam can feel it. It makes Sam feel like that part of him is real. He watches Dean breathe. “You’re cold, Sam,” Dean says. “Can you feel that you’re cold?”

            Sam shrugs. Being cold doesn’t really bother him, this cold is nothing. “It isn’t a big deal,” he said.

            “You’re shivering, man. So am I. So the Bunker. Is the whole place bad? Is the kitchen a bad place?”

            Sam thinks about it. No, the kitchen doesn’t seem like a bad place.

            “How about the library?”

            He’s not so sure about the library. Dean can read it in his face. Sam can’t help but shake his head. “Dude—” he says.

            “We’ll go to the kitchen,” Dean says. “We’ll just sit in the kitchen and get warm, okay?”

            Dean takes his arm and stands him up. Dean closes the car door and leaves Baby behind them. Sam isn’t sure how he feels about the garage but he watches his feet and lets Dean guide him. They come in and through the back halls, through the rooms to the kitchen. It is warm. Dean makes coffee. Sam closes his eyes and smells.

            “I’m going to go tell Cas we’re back,” Dean says. “You want to see him?”

            Sam shakes his head. He feels like a child but he doesn’t want to see Cas. It’s too complicated.

            “Okay,” Dean says softly. “Don’t worry.” When Dean comes back Sam is sitting with his eyes closed, just smelling the brewed coffee. Dean bustles a bit and then puts something on the table. “Coffee,” Dean says.

            He doesn’t really want to drink it but he wraps his hands around it and holds it for a moment, warming his hands before it becomes too uncomfortably hot. That’s what he wants. Warmth. Smell.

            “I was thinking,” Dean says, still quiet, “about the little library. The study. You know the one I mean?”

            Sam nods. He does. It’s got a couple of books shelves and a desk and an armchair.

            “Is it a bad place?” Dean asks.

            Sam smiles. “I feel like a three year old,” he says and opens his eyes.

            “You’re pretty tall, Sam-I-am,” Dean says. “Okay, how’s the vibe on the little library?”

            “Fine,” Sam says.

            “Good.” Dean gets himself a beer to go with his coffee. “Working man’s speedball,” he says. “How are you doing?”

            “Better, I think,” Sam says.

            Dean gripes his forearm fiercely, “You don’t have to be better,” he says. “Just tell me right now, is this okay?”

            Sam takes a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he says.

            Dean nods. “Okay. If you feel like it isn’t okay, you tell me.”

            Sam nods.

            “This makes me feel good,” Dean says. “Doing this with you, I feel like me, okay? I’m a little scared but I’m feeling like I got a grip and for the first time since that fucker started sending you visions, I feel like we’re, we’re together, okay?”

            Sam looks at him and he can see that Dean is really Dean. That he means this.

            “I’ve got you,” Dean says. “I can’t put your head back together. But I’ve got pretty big hands, too.”

            Sam smiles.

            “Cas is putting a cot in the little library,” Dean says. “You can sleep in there if you don’t want to sleep in your room. Your feet will probably hang off.” He shrugs. “You’ve put up with it before.”

            “That’s…nice,” Sam says.

            “Or you can sleep in my room,” Dean says. “You don’t have to do anything. Nothing hard.”

            “You’re always taking care of me,” Sam says.

            “Hey, you cured me of black eyes,” Dean says. “Got the thing off my arm. You can take a little bit of down time.”

            They’re mentally screwed up eighteen ways from Sunday. Sam knows it. But he can feel himself trust his brother for the first time in what feels like a long time. Can feel himself let go.

            “I got you this time,” Dean says.

            Sam thinks it’s been a long time since he felt like Dean would be there to catch him. Maybe it’s time.

 

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> Derealization and Depersonalization are feelings of disconnection with reality. They're not unusual symptoms of anxiety and depression and they're particularly common in people who suffer from Continuous Trauma. Continuous Trauma is like PTSD only the trauma is continuing, not in the past( or post trauma) which I would say pretty much describe Sam and Dean's life. 
> 
> More and more research indicates that a lot of suicide is impulsive. A study showed that 94% of people tracked in a study of ER admittances who were unsuccessful in a suicide attempt were alive a decade later. (There was a point in my life where looking at a kitchen full of dirty dishes triggered the thought, 'If I were dead, I wouldn't have to clean this up.' Luckily, despite being an American, I don't have a gun in the house.) 
> 
> Sam is usually NOT impulsive. Dean's idea of caring is usually a shoulder bump, a bad joke, and a beer. So I tried to find circumstances where they could still be themselves and yet get to this place.


End file.
